The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may or may not constitute prior art.
Accumulators are relatively common components in hydraulic circuits and systems. As their name suggests, they are essentially storage devices that accumulate pressurized hydraulic fluid when a supply or flow of hydraulic fluid exceeds the consumption or demand of a system or device. Conversely, when the consumption or demand exceeds supply or flow, the previously stored fluid is exhausted from the accumulator to maintain the desired or necessary pressure or flow.
Hydraulic accumulators take many forms. Those utilized in automatic motor vehicle transmissions which are relatively small are formed by a deep draw operation on a sheet metal blank or plate. Significant post processing is then required to achieve a usable configuration. Another manufacturing process involves welding multiple pieces, such as a plate rolled into a cylinder and two end caps along all of the adjacent edges. Accumulators fabricated of formed tubing or pipe are also known but all of these configurations suffer from drawbacks such as high final cost or leaks between poorly assembled accumulator pieces. It is therefore apparent that improvements in the art of accumulator design and manufacture are desirable and the present invention is so directed.